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moths in cupboards
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I have these little moths in my pantry and cant get rid of them. I think they may of come in some bulk oatmeal I bought. Everytime I open it they fly out. Anyone know how to get rid of them? I would sure love the help. 🙂
Ugh I hate those things. First, throw out the oatmeal because they have laid eggs in it and soon you will see tiny little worms appear. Then, do a thorough cleaning of your cupboards. They are attracted to grain products and even crumbs will attract them Throw out anything that isn’t sealed. I keep all grain products in ziploc bags or in sealed plastic or glass containers. I’ve heard that Wrigleys Doublemint gum repels them, so I keep some sticks anywhere I keep grain products. I’m not sure if it works or not, but it does seem to. It has to be the doublemint variey, the green one. I think it’s the smell that repels.
We had a time with those this summer, I’ve never had them before! The adults do not eat–the larvae feed on grains and starches. You need to throw out every single thing with larvae in it. Then you have to go to extreme measures to freeze, double bag or tightly seal ANYTHING. We found larvae in rice, pasta, wheat, corn, cornmeal, flour, oats . . . and even under the rim of a spaghetti sauce jar. Keep everything in the kitchen scrupulously clean—all possible spilled flour on the shelves, etc. Kill all the adults you can, to minimize egg laying. You can try the gum, I didn’t know about that. You can also try to trap them. A light right over a can of water can get them to fall in. Menards here sells traps that are safe–a pheromone to attract them to the little cardboard trap, where they get stuck in glue. It took us two months to finally get rid of them, and even now I’m afraid to bring up wheat–I’ve been keeping it in the freezer. Very inefficient! But the things drove us nuts.
I know of other families who have had trouble, just this year, and not before. I wonder if we all aren’t bringing something home from some supplier who has them.
I had these last year. You have to get rid of everything! They come in the food. I now store everything in 1/2 gallon mason jars. That way if something comes home with them they can’t get into anything else. They sell little sticky moth traps (bought mine at ace hardware) and they don’t like bay leaves so I taped those up inside my pantry. They can eat through ziplock bags so you really need something thicker. Also freeze things for 24 hours before putting them in the cabinet.
Thanks ladies,
oh my, didnt know they could be that bad. I will clean out today and I do put alot in glass jars already.
We had that same trouble last year. It was awful, and spawned a hatred in me for moths! I began keeping all grains in the fridge after we had to scrub out both of our pantries. When our refrigerator broke down this summer and we were without one for a week, many things that did not require refrigeration were put back in the pantry. I’m thinking of reinstating the refrigerated grains after reading this. Even being ever vigilant, it took us months before they were completely eradicated. I don’t want to do that again!
We had a problem with them several years ago! We’d see the little buggers crawling across counters and everywhere in drawers! And the adults would fly in your face from all over the house! ICK. Finally learned to FREEZE all grains as soon as we bring them in the door. That will kill any eggs that exist in the grains. We also bought those traps from Menards and THEY WORK!! Got rid of them quickly. The traps were what finally rid us of them. Keeping things super clean did NOT.
I use lavender as many bugs don’t like that either. Put buds in drawers (wool sweaters) and mom puts it is her crawl space to deter spiders. I even hang it in my closet.
In a weird way, I’m glad to know we aren’t the only ones to have dealt with this! To try to make a long story short, we discovered moths about a year ago and it wasn’t until several months later we realized they were never going to go away on their own. Ours came in birdseed, then they made their way to our kitchen. One winter day we completely gutted our pantry. My husband took no chances so we threw away anything we found larvae on, and it was a ton of stuff. We found them on unopened packages of napkins, in cardbard boxes, he even opened a box of ziplocs, took them out one by one and would fina larvae 20 bags deep. I know it sounds weird, but they were EVERYWHERE. We tossed everything. We thought we had gotten rid of them, but sure enough a couple weeks later they started appearing again. We ended up purchasing sticky traps for moths. It took several months of vigilant killing every moth we found and throwing away anything we found larvae on. The traps do help and we replace them. Knock on wood we haven’t seen one in awhile. I feel your pain!
This afternoon I opened my pantry and saw two moths, then three larva. Then saw they must have come in the bulk cashews I bought recently, but left in the pastic bag. There were probably 10 moths and 100 larva on that bag. Yesterday, there was no problem & today this. I removed everything, vacuumed and cloroxed the entire pantry, every shelf, nook and cranny. We threw away anything opened or questionable. Pricey when everything is gluten free. All jars, bottles, and snapware containers were thoroughly cleaned before returning them to the pantry. I only found 4 larva and 5 other moths away from that shelf with the cashews so I am hopeful I caught this early. Everything in the pantry is now in Mason jars, snapware, or ziplocs if unopened. I cleaned for 5 hours. My kitchen is spotless. My trash is full. It’s one am and I’m exhausted. Praying we don’t have a recurrence as I’m having major abdominal surgery in 4 days and have a 6-8 week recovery. I don’t want to be dealing with moths during that time! These things are HORRID!
That stinks! We have dealt w/ these moths on and off for a year and a half now. Just when I think they are completely gone I will find one or a larvae. I highly recommend getting a couple of the sticky traps, even if you think you got them all (we did the same thing as you and apparently missed something). The traps will at least catch most of them. We’ve had to change ours out b/c they get full. You can get them at a Lowe’s type store. In fact, it reminds me I do need to change mine out. Hope that helps!
I hate them!
I use cloves and rosemary in the pantry and add bay leaves in the containers.
Hoping to not have any issue w/them anymore.
Things that you do not use often are better off in the fridge or freezer.
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